This invention relates generally to improving the treatment of medical patients and specifically to producing a beneficial response in a patient by using a computer system to enable the patient to visualize and perform actions upon a representation of their ailment or other physiological manifestation.
Today, advanced medical instruments are able to perform relatively noninvasive scans of a patient's internal organs so that physicians and technicians may "see" the patient's dysfunctioning organ, disease, injury, mental condition, etc. Examples of scanning instruments are Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computer-Aided Tomography (CAT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). These techniques employ sophisticated instruments to obtain scan data of the patient's internal anatomy. The scan data is used to generate a visual representation of the areas of interest within the patient's body so that diagnosis and presurgical planning, or other treatment, may be more accurately performed.
Although the scanning instruments used in obtaining scan data are noninvasive (i.e., they do not involve surgical procedures) the operation and maintenance of such instruments is expensive and elaborate, often requiring various support equipment and teams of specialists. The instruments are often a scarce resource and the cost of obtaining a scan is expensive. Moreover, some scans are limited in the number of times they can be performed, such as when testing occurs over a relatively short period, and some scans can be performed only a limited number of times within the patient's lifetime. Because of these factors the scan data represents very valuable, sometimes irreplaceable, data.
The scan data is typically used only once or a few times to display a three-dimensional visual representation of the patient's internal anatomy for a physician or diagnostician. For example, a CAT scan of a patient's lung may be used to display the internal lung tissue in order for a physician to detect the presence of a cancer tumor which would be undetectable by other diagnostic methods, such as an X-ray. The use of two or more sets of scan data from different techniques (e.g., a CAT scan and a PET scan) may be used to provide an improved display of a patient's ailment since each system is attuned to detecting different characteristics.
Traditionally, the scan data is displayed on a device such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) under the direction of the diagnostician. The diagnostician can, for example, manipulate the viewpoint of the three-dimensional image of the patient's internal organs so that the display may be changed to show different "layers" of a patient's organ as, for example, where layers of tissue are "removed" from an organ to show the organ's interior at increasing depth (i.e., "classification," the peeling away of layers of tissue to show what is underneath). The diagnostician can also manipulate the viewpoint to move around the organ, as needed, for ease of viewing the internal organs and for identifying and observing the patient's disorder.
Improvements in visualization technology allow a diagnostician to have a highly detailed and realistic three-dimensional view of a patient's internal anatomy as represented by the scan data. For example, the diagnostician may view the data in a stereo perspective view. Through the use of very fast computers, or multiple computers, the realism and detail of such three-dimensional displays is continually improving.
However, even with the existence of the noninvasive scanning technology and advanced visualization capabilities modern medicine still encounters many problems in treating persistent and tragically debilitating diseases. Examples of such diseases are Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and cancer. Even though advances in scanning and visualization technology allow more accurate diagnoses and are helpful in planning surgical procedures or other treatments, they are of little use in directly treating the disease. That is, modern medicine is still reduced to surgical, chemical, radiation, or other therapies which often serve only to delay the progress of the disease, often at the expense of the greater part of the patient's health and quality of life. Moreover, the helplessness that a patient feels at being victimized by both the disease and the treatment may further aggravate the effects of the disease on the patient.
Thus, it is desirable to produce an invention which will apply the advancements in scanning systems and visualization technology not only to diagnose, but to treat the patient's ailment. It is also desirable to utilize valuable scan data as much as possible to assist in the patient's recovery. Furthermore, it is desirable to empower the patients and to enable them to take action against their ailments to produce beneficial emotional and physical responses in the patients.